Quebec City Council Votes to Stop Fluoridation by April 2008

The city of Québec will wait a year before terminating its water fluoridation program offered to citizens.

As expected, yesterday the municipal council has literally shoveled this issue in the courtyard of the Health Department, giving it a respite until April 1st 2008 in order to adopt a regulation that would force municipalities to fluoridate their drinking water. If nothing is done, water fluoridation will cease in Quebec city.

The Renouveau municipal (RMQ) party caucus used twice its majority during the vote, to the great displeasure of Mayor Andrée Boucher, first rejecting a proposal made by the Executive Committee aiming at forcing elected representatives of the RMQ to vote on the merit of the question, knowing that the opposition was divided.

Then the RMQ evaded a vote dealing with the immediate stoppage of water fluoridation, adding instead pressure on the government’s responsibility, at least for a year. All the elected representatives of the Municipal Council consider it’s not very likely the government will force municipalities to fluoridate their drinking water. The Health Department only strongly recommends municipalities to do it and then pays the bill.

This measure had been adopted by City of Québec in 1972, but water fluoridation has only one more year to live. Mayor Andrée Boucher and her committee challenged the opposition to vote on the merit of the matter. “Our responsibility is to vote on this issue,” pleaded the Mayor. “The Opposition Leader (Ann Bourget) is trying to evade the council’s responsibility.”

Ann Bourget claimed a consensus among her own party caucus. “The government, now stuck with a hot potato, is trying topass it on to us”, she said. “It’s not up to a city to settle a matter of public health”, added councillor Alain Loubier.

Yesterday’s decision made happy the members of the Front commun pour une eau saine (FCES) (Coallition in favor of healthy water). «For us, it is the culmination of a long fight», commented FCES spokesperson, Émilie Dufour.